SCHEME OF A LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY. 255 



But as a farther means of providing for the independence of the 

 conscript fathers, no doubt, an article would be framed by ,virtue 

 whereof every senator, whether wallowing in the wealth of Croesus, 

 or stricken with the poverty of Belisarius, would be protected from 

 those familiar salutations of the bound bailiffs to which the crowd of 

 undignified debtors is constantly exposed. This clause would spare 

 the porcelian clay of nobility the ignominy of compulsory honesty ; 

 enable the senators, if not to laugh, at least to smile at their credi- 

 tors; injure that importunate crew by depriving them of the readiest 

 method of extracting a payment ; and, on the whole, materially tend 

 to bring about the result contemplated by the perverse intelligence of 

 its mischievous framer. Next, we may suppose, malignant inge- 

 nuity would make the senators the objects of a pernicious and invi- 

 duous distinction. Knowing that as descendants of Adam they must, 

 in common with other men, be prone to mendicity, they would, not- 

 withstanding, be exempted, in certain cases, from the solemn sanc- 

 tions whereby alone truth is supposed to be elicited from mortals. 

 Aware that they must derive their natures from the same corrupted 

 source as the ame damne of the Custom-House conscious that in all 

 innate propensities, they must be just upon a par with that respecta- 

 ble personage, the demon would, nevertheless, introduce a distinction 

 in their favour,, and oblige posterity to give the same credit to their 

 simple, " yea," and " nay," as to the solemn oaths of other men. 

 The multitude (" swinish multitude,") thus implieclly proscribed as 

 habitual and inveterate liars, except when upon oath, would chal- 

 lenge the claims of the senators to be believed on their simple word 

 of honour, sneer at them and their preposterous pretensions, and thus 

 to a limited yet gratifying extent realize the expectations of the dia- 

 bolical machination. 



We might fill up the scanty outline we have hastily sketched, till 

 it should appear less as an extravagant design of a diabolical imagi- 

 nation, than as a faithful copy of an existing institution. But we 

 forbear. The likeness might be discovered by the things depicted ; 

 the infraction of the second commandment, might be construed into 

 a breach of privilege; and the libelous fidelity of the artist rewarded 

 with a six month's residence in the salubrious apartments of His 

 Majesty's common jail at Newgate. 





